Ashok Leyland unveils multi-purpose vehicle 'Stile'

CHENNAI: Hinduja Group flagship firm Ashok Leyland today expanded its light commercial vehicle portfolio with the unveiling of 'Stile', developed by a joint venture with Nissan Motor Company.

Stile will roll out of the Nissan's manufacturing plant in Chennai before the upcoming festival season.

"With Stile, Ashok Leyland is entering into a new vehicle segment, and our confidence with Stile stems from our confidence in the strength of our combined teams in Nissan and Ashok Leyland," Ashok Leyland Chairman, Dheeraj G Hinduja said.

Stile will strike the right chord with the Indian customer just like its first light commercial vehicle 'Dost' did so successfully, he added.

Hinduja added that besides Stile, the company also plans to come up with the passenger carrier version of 'Dost'.

"Also, we will have a third product named 'Partner' in the 4-6 tonne category. These will complete our range of commercial vehicles from the light to heavy and medium segments. As of now, our focus is on the commercial vehicles and we want to be among the top global players in the commercial vehicles segment," Hinduja told PTI.

When asked about the current market conditions, he said: "The Indian market looks very difficult and challenging at the moment and we are undertaking cost-efficiency measures."

Stile has been developed to address various applications like 7-8 seat people transport in the urban and rural areas. It would be launched in both diesel and CNG versions.

"We are extremely happy with the way our association with Nissan has grown from strength to strength. Our shared vision and philosophies have found expression in both the products that we have engineered thus far - Dost and Stile,"Hinduja Group Chairman G P Hinduja said.

Ashok Leyland and Nissan Motor Company had inked a Master Co-operation Agreement (MCA) in October 2007 for vehicle manufacturing, powertrain manufacturing and technology development.

Under the MCA, one of the joint ventures is to manufacture Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs), in which Ashok Leyland has an equity stake of 51 per cent and Nissan 49 per cent. Stile is the second product offering from this joint venture.